Before the Jack,
After the Queen.
A wild-card variant whose rule is also its name: the card revealed immediately before any Jack is wild, and the card revealed immediately after any Queen is wild. The face cards themselves are wild too.
Rules below come from the 2024 onboarding doc that Jesse received — specifically from a section the doc calls "The Existential Game," of which this variant appears to be a focused subset. It is not yet confirmed that "Before the Jack, After the Queen" and the doc's "Existential Game" are identical at the table, or whether this is a tighter sibling. Treat the rules below as a working hypothesis. Jesse has not reviewed this page.
Wild cards
The wild set in this game is:
- Every Jack.
- Every Queen.
- The card revealed immediately after any Queen, for the remainder of the hand.
- The card revealed immediately before any Jack, for the remainder of the hand.
"Before" and "after" refer to the order of reveal — not to the dealing order or any face-down cards. As community or stud cards are turned in sequence, a Jack flipped causes the previously revealed card to become wild retroactively, and a Queen flipped causes the next card to become wild prospectively.
Setup and structure
The variant is played within a standard stud-or-community framework (the doc does not pin down which, and Jesse has not confirmed). Standard house rules otherwise: 5¢ ante, 10¢ max bet, three raises per round, no check-raise.
Hand formation
Best five-card poker hand by the standard house ranking. Wild cards substitute for any rank and suit. As in 7s/8s/9s, the high density of wilds means five-of-a-kind is a frequent winning hand.
Open questions in the notes
The retroactive "before the Jack" wild rule has interesting interactions with the betting structure: a card that was bet against as an ordinary 7 of clubs is suddenly a wild card the moment a Jack is turned. It is not clear from the notes whether players whose hand reads have just been invalidated have any recourse beyond continuing the hand. (The working interpretation is: no.)
It is unclear from the notes whether the "before/after" relation refers only to the immediately neighbouring card, or whether all cards turned before a Jack become wild. The doc's phrasing suggests immediately-neighbouring; The notes do not yet record an adjudication in the case where two Jacks land in quick succession, or where a Queen is followed by another Queen.